May 07, 2009

The day after

Anyone still thinking about the summit hubbub? I suspect the NHL drama has knocked it off everyone's radar, but just in case I have an email thread to share.

This email came from the mayor's office to councillors on Tuesday:

Councillors,As
part of the City's sponsorship of the Economic Summit and
to encourage as many Councillors as possible to attend, we were able to
negotiate a package rate for CouncillorsIn light of thepossibility that this could be viewedas
accepting a gift exceeding a $100 and maybe interpreted as a contravention of the City's Code of conduct. We
are recommending that Members of Council who are attending the Economic
Summit pay the full registration fee for their participation.The Chamber will make arrangements with you directly to bill for the remaining balance.
I regret any inconvenience this may have caused.Respectfully , Drina OmazicChief of Staff

Councillor Scott Duvall replied:

I find the price of 395.00 per person very expensive and ludicrous in these times..
If all Councillors including the Mayor attend, the total cost would be
6320.00 not counting the amount of Staff that will be attending.
I thought the city was a sponsor with 15,000.00 to date yet they ask for more.
I tried to get a ticket today at 150.00 , but have been told it is sold out..
With these difficult economic times for taxpayers and business, I
understand now how business will fail. Lay off the workers yet let's
pay outrageous money for speeches.
With these charges to attend, I would like to know of any person that paid out of his own pocket?
I have yet to see one company express their positive attitude of expanding and wanting to help the economy with their money.
Most companies at this time are looking for handouts from the government who get the money from the people they laid off.
I apologize for sounding negative, but in these difficult times I believe we should be living within our means.

John Dolbec from the Chamber replied late last night:

Hi Scott:The City's ec dev dept. was a sponsor for $15K.With that level of
sponsorship came 2 complementary seats to the Invitational Summit, plus
a table for 10 for the luncheon, which were provided to ec dev.Now, we had negotiated a
group rate of $150 for each Councillor to attend, plus, $200 for each
member of the SMT, with the offices of the Mayor and the City Manager
respectively. We stand by that price.However, we understand that
internally at the City you have been advised that Councillors have been advised that they should pay the full price - that was not a ruling of
the Chamber. Yes, unfortunately, we were indeed 100% sold out as of Monday AM.However, we still did set
aside some seats in reserve if any elected officials who still wanted to
attend - so, I do apologize if you were inadvertently turned away -that
should not have have happened.I respect your opinions;
but we did have a wide cross section of Hamilton leaders, including Don
Fraser of the Labour Council, who did attend.The feedback that we received from all participants that I talked to, was that it was more than a worth while event. There were 160 community
leaders attending the invitational Summit and about another 260 who attended the lunch alone, which was priced at $60, plus another 250 city
youths will be attending at no charge tomorrow.As per my e-mail yesterday, all net proceeds of the Summit do go back into the Summit itself - none goes to fund Chamber ops.PS: By way of comparison,
the highly successful Ontario Chamber's Summit, upon which ours is
based, prices their event at about $3.5K per ticket.In any event, always appreciate your views.

Finally Councillor Brad Clark chimed in today:

John,While I can't
tell a private chamber what to do, the idea of charging residents or
business's to participate in an economic summit is distasteful. What
about the brilliant thinkers who are currently unemployed, did we hear
from them? What about the struggling self employed, did we hear from
them? What about the entrepreneur who are struggling to secure venture
capital, did we heard from them?I understand that this was a function of the chambers but that the JPC and the city were involved. With all three groups involved it is obvious that there was a significant lack of communication.BTW
as Chair of Audit and Administration I asked if this event was a
command performance. I asked if I should cancel the meeting. The
Mayor"s office said no. If you can get quorum please proceed. Next thing
I read in the Spectator is that my committee members judgments are
being questioned for not attending. For the record, Councillors
Pearson, Powers,Morelli and Clark were present and completed our work..I am disappointed with the way this matter has beem permitted to be portrayed in the media.

Comments

What about the voices from the grassroots, the many that work tirelessly in bringing reform to our community, the many that are the poor and working poor who give their time, yet cannot afford an outrageous fee like that. But then in the big picture it is those voices that are always suppressed and ignored, because the truth is that they, the money man, think they have nothing of value to offer. Chambers are about them and their members, it has nothing to do with the people or the workers period. Mr Dolbec, you may pat yourself on the head and think you have done great things but in my world, you completely missed the boat.

I think the Summit should've been free!
In Toronto nowdays the city is proposing free washroom use for every customer in the shopping district.
An the other hand in Hamilton even a bloody economic summit can't be dealth with?
C'mon!
It's time for a regime change in the city(hall) of Hamilton.

It's good to hear that ward seven Alderman Scott Duvall can see this summit for what it was, all words and no action.

Since last September Hamilton has lost over 5,300 jobs and counting, what has the Chamber done to address this Elephant in the room?

Most galling of all was the $15,000 city taxpayers coughed up as sponsors of this bun fest.

Nobody bothered asking me if I thought my portion of this $15,000 was tax money well spent?

Meanwhile more and more of the streetscape has become marred by graffitti tagging and the potholes in our roads grow ever larger.

Perhaps I should send the bill for my new struts and shocks to City Hall, since their decrepit roads caused them to wear out prematurely.

As to tagging, perhaps the punishment should fit the crime, like serving your sentence cleaning up the mess you created, and if a minor, mom and dad should give them a hand to better learn about the responsabilities of parenting.

Nicole Macintyre

Nicole MacIntyre is the queen of kings. A married mother of two boys, including the world's former worst sleeper, she's also a reporter and parenting columnist at the Hamilton Spectator. A devotee of the 'whatever works' approach to child-rearing, Nicole has learned to never say "I'll never" when it comes to parenting.